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Over half of employers are using social media for internal comms

You can either be shocked at how few or amazed by how many employers are now using social media to build a community among their employees. It’ll no doubt depend on how much or how little you use social media in your private life. A new survey from Towers Watson has revealed that globally, just over 50% of bosses are connecting to the workforce through a variety of social media tools including instant messaging.

However, there seems to be little consensus on what the best tools are and there’s a sense that employers are still feeling their way down a dark corridor. Only 30% to 40%, according to how you read the data, saw most of the tools as being highly effective while just 40% could say with confidence that it was cost effective. However, these are still high enough percentages and suggest the trend is upward. It’s hard to believe that companies will be able to put the social media genie back in the bottle now that it’s out.

Kathryn Yates and Towers Watson explained:

As today’s workforce evolves, we know from our research that the growing number of remote workers are looking for clear communication, to be treated with integrity, and want coaching and support from afar. For employers to effectively engage and retain remote workers, they will need to connect them with their leaders, managers and colleagues. We think social media tools can be a real help in making this connection

Instant messaging and streaming video were seen as most effective by those who use those tools while out of the 53% that use social networks – only 29% could state that it was effective. Interestingly both leadership and employee blogs were used by half of those surveyed with about a third saying they made an impact.